When I transferred Greenclaw over to the Beta server his cooking wasn’t very high. Over 300, but not that high. So in the beta, when this recipe for Last Weeks Mammoth drops (“Use: Eating Old Mammoth makes you sad.”), requires 350 Cooking, he can’t use it. That got me to thinking “WTH am I doing playing the Beta when I’ve actually got real stuff to do??”

So it was back to the real servers and Greenclaw. Now, let me just toss in this little tidbit, the catacombs of Utgarde Keep are really, really nicely done. But that’s just pretend when there’s work to do in the real Azeroth, namely, make dinner.

My cooking last night, I was pleased to find, was actually at 360. I’d just recently got the Moknathal Ribs recipe there at Toshley Station and so I set out after some rib meat. Raptors are all over the place, and having flight form meant it was easy to move about, drop in on food like I was an Army Ranger, hop back out when it was harvested and the raptor skinned. I quickly got a stack of 20 together. Back to Toshley where I didn’t find the cooking area I needed. No matter, down to Evergrove, where I didn’t find the cooking area I needed. Argh. Out comes the flint and tinder and I create a camp fire at the feet of the cooking goods vendor. “M e a t. F i r e. G o o d.”

What were the odds? That recipe was yellow to me, and I cooked up 20 some ribs, 28 actually, and that took my cooking to 368. (That’s not the only recipe that’s making me sad, now that I think about it.) What to do, what to do? (And Crunchy Serpent is the same level food, so no better, harder to get meat, and helps spell power, whoopdido.)

Cruise the highways and byways looking for recipes. The World’s End Tavern actually had three recipes for me. All fish. Two of the recipes are orange, guaranteeing skillups for me. Well, hell. It’s not even Friday. And my fishing is about 110 so that’s a non-starter.

Fish. Where am I going to get fish? My Horde guy can fish, he’s actually 375 fishing. But to go grab him, fish up a stack of the giant off-hand fishes that I need now, get to a neutral auction house and do the cross-faction transfer. … There’s got to be an easier way.

Ever the fallback position, I go visit the auction house in Darnassus. The fish I need are on sale for 30s each. SOLD. I only need 7 of them.

When I approached the 300 Cooking point I was delighted to find I could reach it with Bear meat. I did not need fishing to supply the fish I needed to get to 300 Cooking. I’m disappointed that Blizzard didn’t add a similar shortcut for those approaching 375 Cooking. Happily the few fish I needed to get my Cooking maxed cost me a pittance.

In hindsight, I believe folks only need to worry about reaching 350 Cooking before heading to Northrend. From what I’ve seen there’s a slew of cooking recipes available at 350. Some require fish, but some require meat. Mammoth Meat.